just-food authors and correspondents

José Carlos González-Hurtado, president, IRI International

With growth in FMCG in many western economies hard to come by, manufacturers and retailers need to step up efforts to work together, argues José Carlos González-Hurtado, the president of IRI's international operations.

In the latest of its monthly columns on just-food, FMCG market research giant IRI surveys the main issues food manufacturers and retailers will have to consider as they market and sell to consumers in 2017.

Providing consumers with the best line-up of food products has always been a challenge for retailers who understand that choice is a key driver for getting shoppers into stores or buying online. However, a desire to make the shopping experience simpler has led to smaller store formats and the need to cut waste and cost in the supply chain means that retailers are now reducing the number of products they stock.

Discount retailers are a major force in grocery retailing in a number of European markets, forcing supermarkets to adapt and prompting suppliers to revise their strategies in a number of areas. However, in a guest column for just-food, José Carlos González-Hurtado, the former Carrefour chief commercial officer who is now president of international at IRI, outlines why there could be limits to the growth of the discounters.